Category: Strategic Narrative

In defence of story

Posted on by Bex Felton

“It sounds to me that it would be Russia based on all the evidence they have,” Trump told reporters. “As soon as we get the facts straight, if we agree with them, we will condemn Russia or whoever it may be.”

 

Most great cultural epochs begin and end with the loss of Truth. The loss of God, of King and Country, Good and Bad, Right and Wrong; of Communism, Socialism, Capitalism. The last century was full of this loss, and now, in the fledgling years of the next, we find ourselves sheltering, a bit miffed, in the ruins of these grand abandoned notions; noting that even in these brave new worlds – in the midst of global warfare, state controlled propaganda, the profound destruction of social values and the industrialised transformation of human possibility – it would still be possible to agree on the facts of the day. Facts were facts, spades were spades. Solid things, inarguable things. Things that just were.

Today, we find ourselves in a new kind of era: one in which my facts are not necessarily your facts; where objectivity crumbles into spin; where Truth is what you make it, if you know the tricks. And it is here that Truth: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality finds us: bruised and a bit sad, quite probably at the end of the echo-chamber we fell down again after parsing the morning news. Like Hector Macdonald, author, long-time friend and writer at The Storytellers, it offers us a smart, insightful guide to this smoke-and-mirrors terrain: astutely observing the dangers ahead, the dangers unknown and the dangers within – all illustrated, of course, by many wonderful stories.

Stories, deservedly, play an important role in Truth. Not simply as a means to demonstrate points in memorable and meaningful ways – which of course is just one great power of storytelling – but as a possible suspect: dealing in the shady art of truth-selection and suggestive construction that has come to figure so prominently in any narrative about the success of Trump or Brexit.

Storytelling, argues Truth, is a form of partial truth. As its opening inscription reminds us, there was a time where this was not a problematic assertion. “To hell with facts!”, iconic 60’s author Ken Kesey declares in its opening inscription. “We need stories!”. But for the modern reader, post-all of it, alarm bells ring. Trouble, we suspect, lies ahead. Because in the construction of this refrain (worthy indeed of the very brashest Brexiteer and the tools Truth itself offers to arm us against such verbal foul play) story isn’t just better than fact (more effective, more emotive, more coherent – all of which believe to be true). It’s counter to it. Worse – it’s superseded it. This is the age of story! To hell with the facts. Welcome to the age of Post-Truth.

Truth defines story as ‘a selective account of a process of change, which emphasises causal relationships between situations and events’. Neutral descriptor or loaded gun? It’s a tough call, in this particular moment, where story stands accused of aiding and abetting a most troubling state of affairs. In the selection, we all know, there is an ocean of agenda to navigate – usually in the micro-seconds our brains have to process such content. We’re shown the power of extreme, but effective, selection in the example of Mervyn King’s story of the credit crisis; a narrative in which the huge, unyielding complexity of that period is chiselled, cleanly, into a coherent domino-effect that most of us could really, genuinely grasp – perhaps for the first time. That’s quite a feat – and for Truth, where the ‘true value’ of stories lie. ‘They make complex stuff simple and clear’; and by ‘seem[ing] to show how one thing leads to another, they help us make sense of a chaotic world’. In Truth’s example of Kew Gardens – transformed, by the act of storytelling, from a lovely irrelevance with no place in Austerity Britain to a vital global hub of cutting-edge ecological research, deserving of public funds – we see the power of this selection for unequivocal good. And yet. There’s a price to pay for this partiality. ‘Real life’, we’re reminded, ‘is rarely so black and white’. By emphasising ‘seeming’ causation, we can attribute significance where there is none. What we gain in simplicity, we lose in complexity. We habitually forgo the multiplicity and difficulty of experience; we over-engineer cause and effect. Worse, we expose ourselves to agenda of another person’s selection. We trust that the facts they string are the ones we need to know. All this is undeniably true, and easily exploited (we agree with mutual head-shaking) in a cynical, cynical world.

But we would like to add another, more wholesome, dimension to story, rooted in countless experiences with our clients, and with the world at large, and even, perhaps, a preference for optimism. For us, a story is a selective account of a process of change which connects our emotional and rational minds: contextualising the relationships between people, situations and events in order to make meaning, take action, and adapt continuously to a changing world.  Storytelling, then – the primary means by which our brains evolved to navigate our environment as a collective, finding patterns that allow us to prioritise survival-critical information – is the process by which we enact that process of change in ourselves and in those around us. The thing about stories, as Truth reinforces, is that it’s innate. We tell stories, naturally, all the time, as our primary means to deny the chaos of life. When no story is offered, we can’t help but find patterns in the mess. For public entities of any kind, the conclusion is undeniable: if you’re not telling your story, you’d better believe somebody else is. And that story might be big – a political campaign, a biopic, a history book – but it might also be small.

The power of anecdotes is profound, as Truth notes, because their defining characteristic is their reality. When wielded by an organisation as a means to share learning and shape behaviours, they can indeed be ‘extremely powerful tools’. But of course, anecdotes aren’t just tools to be wielded. They’re a fundamental form of human exchange, sprung from the well of collective, daily, lived experience. Wherever there are communities, there are anecdotes. And where we find anecdotes, we find multiplicity: realities that contradict the grand origin myths of a nation, or business, or group. When hundreds of these anecdotes come together, each with their own challenge, pressing in on those foundations, the conflict in a society, organisation, or family, can be profound. And these ‘counter narratives’ tell the observant leader (or family member, or citizen) something important about their tribe. The lifeblood of a collective runs through the stories it tells. As Truth shows us, and as we help our clients to practice, by listening to these stories, we can intervene at the root: changing behaviour and shifting mind-sets by through real examples that show a different way really is possible.

Taking control of the narrative you want to tell – the things you believe, what you stand for, why you do what you do – as a leader, an organisation or an individual (all, today, expected to constantly narrate life choices and career paths to expectant employers, employee and peers) has never been a more important or essential part of life. But our discomfort lingers.

It’s a discomfort rooted in the deeply held sense that to tell stories is to fictionalise, or falsify. Indeed, it was this, Truth’s opening pages confess, that originally spurred its creation. Yet here, too, we’d like to offer a different take.

Stories might select facts, but they don’t have to run counter to them. They give meaning to the ones they hold by providing the emotional context needed to make sense of information that would otherwise be overwhelming or irrelevant. In the irresistible logic of the narrative structure – the emphasis of cause and effect that Truth rightly positions as central to the story form – we’re given a sense-checking framework that demands credibility of its author. Just as Truth offers an invaluable set of heuristics to help us assess the information we hear, so, we believe, a narrative framework holds the storyteller to account: shining stark light on the wild or implausible or misconstrued as we move sequentially through the process of change to an attainable, believable outcome.

Yes: we must be alert to the people controlling the narrative. But in today’s environment of mass communication and mass consumption, where the paralysis of information overload frequently numbs us to issues that deserve our attention and comprehension, the bigger risk is that we retreat entirely – burnt out by the analytical burden that must accompany every perspective, every thought, every action. And yes: emotional stories can be abused, as per Truth’s analysis; needlessly included in our news to elicit undeserving or unsavoury responses. But by allowing us to zoom into the emotional experience of the individual, stories neurologically reconnect us to the empathy we struggle to locate in today’s world, powerfully reconfiguring the way we respond to the people around us. By offering us a familiar structure through which to anchor ourselves – the grand narratives that recur time and time again, the stories we seem to hold inside ourselves and tell as soon as we can speak – stories offer us a steady point in a fast moving world; the context we need to stay afloat. It’s this, more than anything else, which perhaps explains why the craft of storytelling has seeped into every part of our culture in recent years. We’re all just trying to connect the dots.

Truth leaves us with an important warning: that stories can often be taken as The Truth, instead of just one truth; and it falls to all of us, in this age, to remain vigilant in the stories we consume and the weight we allow them to bear. We’d also like to propose an additional take: that story can be the framework where we define, discover and sustain a bigger (and constantly evolving) truth – of who we are, why we do what we do, what experiences lead us to this point. Our lives are characterised by the restless pursuit of this small, personal truth: and as everything else falls away, as we move deeper into this Post-Truth world, we can return to this framework, and relocate, and recalibrate, in order to bring purpose and direction and fulfilment to our lives. But Truth also leaves us with an even more important reminder: that ‘eliminating diseases, feeding billions, building global companies, defending nations, developing miraculous technologies, connecting the world: all of this has been done by humans co-operating’ – and this co-operation ‘depends on the ideas we share – the truths we tell each other’. The stories, in other words, that make the world go round. On that, I think, we can all agree.

 

Bex Felton

Burning bridges

Posted on by Marcus Hayes

Over 15 years of working with Executives around the world on their strategic narratives, we’ve had plenty debate about the ‘burning bridge’: the emotional hook that demands people take action before they get burned. In theory, it’s the ultimate form of motivation. But in the carrot-or-stick story of the world, where the pressures of constant change or increasingly mammoth global issues make most of us drag our feet in mutinous bewilderment, it’s tough for any leader to galvanise a community into decisive action.

It was therefore great to welcome Anita Krishnan to The Storytellers from Harvard University who studied under Marshall Ganz, a great catalyst of grassroots social movements that achieved real change, from American civil rights to the United Farm Workers fight for decent working conditions. It was from these models that Marshall went on to devise the organising model that would see Barack Obama win his 2008 presidential campaign. He’s got a very informative YouTube video you can view here.

His starting point is this: ‘strategy without motivation is just theory’. Strategy sets out the rational, logical ‘how’ – but our motivation requires an emotional ‘why’. Regardless of how advanced we think we are, our operating systems are still firmly connected to our animal forefathers. We like emotional autopilot, which means sticking to established – and once-efficient – habits. It’s like we’re still grazing on the Savannah. Our surveillance system is constantly on the lookout for signs of danger that will trigger our anxiety, and stimulate the adrenaline to take action. Hence that ‘burning platform’.

But, as Marshall points out, we all know that our instinctive response to danger is flight, fight or freeze. Hardly productive conditions for strategy execution. Yet we see them all too often within organisations preparing to change. The so called cynics who are up for a fight or the ‘passive aggressives’ who seem to be on board but silently do nothing. In this ‘Catch 22’ it seems that the very thing we need to motivate action is also inhibiting it.

Marshall’s solution is to balance the threat with positive, galvanising emotions. His first is hope: a theme that he used to great effect in the Obama campaign. Hope, he quotes, is the belief in the plausibility of the possible. In business, no one can ultimately predict success, but I’ve had the privilege of working with many leaders who leave you feeling that success is possible, even in the most challenging circumstances.

Next is solidarity, that feeling that we’re in it together, and together we can make it happen. Playing to our identity is a powerful driver. I love that moment in the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ when Al Gore sets out the massive challenge of climate change and then turns to his fellow Americans and reminds them that massive challenges is what we do best (along with emotive images of putting a man on the moon etc.)

But arguably the most galvanising emotion comes in the form of a truly unpronounceable acronym: YCMAD. Try it out on yourself. Think of a burning bridge you need to address and reflect on how you feel. Then add the words: ‘but you can make a difference’. Of course it only works if you can! Again we see this in the environmental debate. Create the motivation without the means and you get nodding heads from people who still drive their cars and fly on their holidays. Show them they can make a difference to ocean pollution by avoiding plastic bags and you get positive action.

It’s a leader’s job to balance these emotions and empower people to act. Luckily, as Marshall points out, this is exactly what makes the narrative form so powerful as a tool to educate, inspire and connect people, even – and especially – in the face of overwhelm and fear. Obama’s closing words remind us always to strive for the audacity of hope. Stories are where we learn how.

Marcus Hayes

Ways of rescuing

Posted on by Nailia Tasseel

Many of you will be familiar with the writer, art historian, thinker and artist John Berger, most famous for the essential “Ways of Seeing”. As Berger approaches his 90th birthday, I found myself reading a few articles that celebrate this great figure of critical thinking – and a few shared thoughts on the power of storytelling.

First of all, I saw the following quote from Tilda Swinton on Berger:

“He always calls himself a storyteller rather than a writer – to recognise the stories woven around people, to bear witness to them, and simply identify stories good for the reader’s health.”

There is so much in this last part, a definition of storytelling vs. mere writing, that resonates – firstly, the notion that the stories that matter are almost always the ones focused around people. This is as true at a company level as it is on the individual level. At The Storytellers, we constantly strive to show how real people live at the centre of the overarching narratives we produce, putting them at the heart of our stories, our creative endeavours and our large-scale events.

The second part of this quote is also interesting, the notion of ‘bearing witness’. When it comes to winning the hearts and minds of an organisation, a compelling narrative is simply the first step. Compounding the belief that the business journey is the right one is indeed often a question of ‘bearing witness’ along the way – appreciating, sharing and celebrating the stories that attest to the contributions people make amplifies and corroborates the journey that everyone is on.

Finally, the notion of stories being good for people’s health should not be underestimated. Making sense of the world around us, making sense of the events that happen in our lives, bonding with others, framing a personal narrative for our own life and ambitions… these are all things that make us feel better in ourselves, and storytelling can play a vital role in fortifying these mental pillars. To put it plainly, stories make us feel good, in ways that we have only just begun to understand.

After reading Swinton’s great words on Berger, my interest was piqued and I read on, finding the following quote from the man himself:

“A story is always a rescuing operation.”

Now these words really got me thinking, not least because at a recent employee conference for one of our clients we touched on and discussed just this – the notion of ‘rescue stories’. In that particular context, we identified the value of looking for stories that not only celebrated great achievements, but also stories of when a situation or a person had been rescued from disaster by one or more colleagues. It’s a great idea – this means being brave enough to accept failure, celebrate the positive contribution of the people that rescued the situation, and being open to learning from any mistakes made.

But could it be that a story is always, in some way or other, about something or someone being rescued? To be rescued is to be saved, to be freed, to recover… and it’s not easy to think of many stories where this kind of theme is not present on some level.

So the idea of rescue being thematically an essential part of any story is certainly an interesting one… but I sense that Berger meant something different.

Considering the previous quote from Swinton, I can’t help but feel that it is the act of listening, of telling, of observing, of storytelling itself that is a rescuing operation, and this comes back to the notion of ‘bearing witness’. Without telling the story, the story is lost. Without storytelling, the endeavours we make towards our shared goals and ambitions never happened. Without storytelling, progress simply does not exist – it never happened.

To tell a story is to rescue something good from oblivion – and unless you tell it, oblivion is where the story, with all it’s human endeavour and personality, will go. Berger does not explicitly mention the fact that a good, but lost story tends to be replaced by something far more ugly… but I cannot help but think that this is another reason why Berger chose the word ‘rescue’ when musing on the power of storytelling. In telling a good story, we are rescued from the bad ones too.

As ever, storytelling shows itself to have a seemingly inexhaustible range of uses and applications. Salvation certainly can come from a story, and sometimes a story specifically about a phenomenal rescue is just what is needed… but Berger’s words tell us that on a deeper level, there is something about storytelling, in and of itself, that always saves.

Let’s be honest: four ways of winning over your cynics in times of change

Posted on by Nailia Tasseel

There’s no doubt about it. Storytelling is an immensely powerful weapon in times of change and uncertainty. It can change mindsets, alter people’s belief systems and inspire people to follow where they may not ever have considered following before.

But how can you win the hearts and minds of hardened cynics and sceptics during times of intense change (think middle management)? The answer – or at least part of the answer – is ‘be honest’. I recently read a great article in Harvard Business Review, which inspired me to write about honesty and credibility when creating and engaging people in your strategic narrative.

Too many leaders start their strategic narrative by painting a wonderful vision for the future.  They go on to weave a fantastical story of what lies ahead, and the great things that they are going to achieve together. Inspiring? Yes. Credible? Not always, particularly for companies which have been going through painful change. That’s not to say that an inspiring vision isn’t important, of course (and often we open our leadership meetings with a short but powerful film that makes a fleeting reference to the vision) – it’s just that you need to be careful about its positioning.

So why isn’t it credible? The reason is fourfold.

Firstly, painting a glorious vision of the future, when all people have been experiencing is pressure, confusion, waves of redundancy, losing colleagues, bosses, and are being expected to adopt completely new ways of working, is not necessarily the best place to start your story. People cannot connect their own experiences to it. They can’t connect to it in a meaningful way. It’s a distant land of milk and honey in which they can’t even begin to imagine themselves living when the present and immediate future still holds a good deal of uncertainty, sense of loss, fatigue and fear. You risk turning them off from the start, and getting them back ‘in the zone’ and envisioning a future state can be a real challenge.

What’s important is to reconnect people to why they joined the organisation in the first place; remind them of the pride they once held and the higher, motivating and emotionally compelling purpose of why the organisation exists. This will enable people to move out of their current state of instability, even if temporarily, to reconnect with the organisation in a real way. It enables them to recapture the moments which inspired them to want to work there in the first place, and lifts them into a more positive place. Like a good marriage counsellor, you are asking them to remember what attracted them to you before things went awry. ‘Remember the good times?’ It needs to be real. From the outset.

Secondly, your story needs a burning platform – a case for change. This needs to be an acknowledgement of what’s really going on out there: a reality check which clearly articulates the threat to the business and the risk it’s facing should it not change. It may not be comfortable. It may even feel like an ice-bath after the warmth of the bit where we talked about pride and purpose. Again, this makes things real. This part of your story could be a reference to the external forces which are driving change, such as competition, changing consumer behaviours, legislation or the competitive environment. It may be an honest statement about the fact that we’re not performing at our best. Or, as we have experienced with many a client, it’s an opportunity for the senior management team to acknowledge the pain the business has collectively been experiencing. In some cases, even to acknowledge their own role they have played in ‘not getting it right’. Every story needs an antagonist or ‘baddie’ in it, and this element of the current reality should appear early on in your narrative, warts and all. Be honest. If you’re not, people just won’t believe you and will continue to resist. The cynics need to hear this honesty – not just a few hours of corporate rhetoric.

Thirdly, in telling your story, you need to allow people to interrogate it. As much as they ‘get it’ rationally, there may well be tough questions as they start to process and internalise the content. They need to see a visibly united senior leadership team who are speaking as one. They need to be able to ask those questions to dispel any sense of whitewash or brushing under the carpet. People need to feel that their pain has been acknowledged. That they have a voice. That they’re being listened to. If you aren’t honest and if you don’t allow these moments of interrogation and questioning, you will find that people just put their heads down, tut, roll their eyes, put up their metaphorical umbrella and wait for the shower to pass so they can get on with what they were doing before. They also need time to work out what it means to them before they go on to communicate it with their teams.

Lastly, don’t make your story a piece of fantasy or a metaphor. ‘Once upon a time, there was a wizard that lived in a far-off land’ immediately makes cynics want to vomit. Sorry, but keeping it real and grounding your strategic journey in reality by illustrating your messages with real facts, proof points and anecdotes about colleagues and customers which create an emotional connection is the route to believability. People can imagine themselves in the situation. They may have even experienced such situations themselves. In this way you are creating a credible, honest and real articulation of your strategic journey of change that people can empathise with and see the part they can play.

If they can’t relate to it, they will continue to feel that change is being ‘done to them.’ They’ll feel like victims rather than heroes, resistant rather than compliant. And, cynic or not, everyone wants to be a hero.

Brexit: how the lack of a clear narrative has divided the nation

Posted on by Nailia Tasseel

Two weeks ago just over half of the voting population in the UK decided the European Project is no longer working for them. And a fortnight later the picture is as unclear as it was the morning of 24 June, exacerbated further by a major leadership crisis in the Opposition party, together with a battle for leadership for the Conservative party following David Cameron’s resignation.

There is little doubt we are now living in a more disunited Europe but, more seriously, this has also become a worryingly disunited Britain. These divisions were not caused by the Referendum. But wow – has it brought them out!

On 23 June we were asked two simple questions: remain or exit? Reaching one answer released the ‘genie’ and we now have so many questions, with most of them substantially more critical than the original.

Who will now lead us? Will Britain be taken apart? Can we fix the social, age and identity rift? Will Europe punish us? What will a Europe without the UK become? Will we actually leave the European Union and if the future government decides NOT to invoke article 50, what will this mean to over 50% of the UK population?

The task of building a United Europe has been such a large venture over several decades. The European Union has certainly been no stranger to controversy, particularly at times when ‘costs without context’ were revealed, or enforced European Laws were perceived to trespass and indeed irritate our natural sense of independence. However, whether people have voted Remain or Leave, we must all accept that during this time the EU securely entered the bloodstream of the British Public Service. So the challenge is not just about physically leaving Europe: it’s now about rebooting all of our government systems and processes, plus rebooting a substantially bigger challenge: our mindset.

What does hindsight teach us about the two campaigns? Both missed shaping a visionary story, positioning their current reality, balancing authentic challenges with real opportunities, revealing their desired destination, inspiring voters to understand and believe in what they were hearing, making it personally relevant to them and their lives. In short: setting a purpose. Instead both sides simply replaced this with a series of threats, each with increasingly scary risks and damning consequences. And almost worse: the EU offered no story to share at all.

This unforgivable ‘lack of story’ is cited again and again by political commentators; cited for not offering considered clarity and direction, but also cited for creating a vacuum of confusion and uncertainty, allowing half-truths, feelings and threats to fester entirely unchallenged.

There is ample evidence a simple narrative painting a positive picture of a future in (or out of) the EU just may have delivered a fuller context to the crucial choice being faced. Without it voters felt a lack of understanding. Without it they felt remote. Wiithout it they sensed insufficient response to their concerns. Without it, a sense of alienation was allowed to well up. The European argument possibly lost touch with the very people it was being built for.

Interestingly, on both sides the ‘killer facts’ which were previously fuelling the threats have suddenly disappeared along with several prominent leading campaigners, resulting yet again in a vulnerable and potentially toxic vacuum without clear leadership. In light of this, we all will need to decide if we become the heroes or victims to this changing landscape: will we take control of our new reality or ‘simply accept’ whatever is being thrown at us? What will the new strategies and indeed stories be in this time of ‘not knowing’?

The discussion continues…

Seven reasons why a Communications Department shouldn’t write its own strategic narrative

Posted on by Nailia Tasseel

Yesterday a colleague told me about a conversation he’d had with an individual who had recently left a large Financial Services institution. The aforesaid Institution’s Communications Department (which is an excellent Communications Department, I hasten to add) had taken it upon itself to write their strategic, or corporate, narrative. Well, that’s its job isn’t it? It’s as close to the business as any department, has an important relationship with the C-suite, and a strategic narrative forms an essential communications tool for leaders. Who, if not the Communications Department, is qualified enough to undertake this essential task?

The problem was that the narrative landed badly, fizzled out and, well, has gone nowhere.

I’m not altogether surprised. Without wanting to be contentious in anyway, here are seven reasons why a Communications department should think extremely carefully about crafting a strategic narrative and expect it to land with a punch in the organisation.

1. If a Comms department is seen to ‘own’ the strategic narrative, it will never be more than just a comms or engagement initiative.  To get buy-in and commitment to it, you need the Executive Team to own it, and thereafter leaders and managers throughout the entire organisation, and ultimately the entire workforce. This is different from the Executive team ‘signing it off’. If they have not been consulted individually on its content, and then brought together as a team to work through it and give it their blessing as a single, unified team, aligning behind it, committing to it and role-modelling it as a co-created piece of work, you will not get true alignment and the narrative goes out to the organisation at risk. And without alignment as a united senior team, you cannot hope to align the rest of the organisation.

2. A strategic narrative needs to be an honest, credible and transparent Story.  A member of the Communications team may well have conducted some interviews to extract the content, but we have seen too many times how Executives are not prepared to open up fully to one of their own, particularly someone in a more junior position. To get to the kernel of truth often requires a third party – a peer – who is skilfully able to navigate the political waters of a very senior leadership team in a non-threatening, objective way.

3. A corporate narrative should be a direct mirror, or reflection, of the views of the most senior team, often supported or embellished by a wider perspective from others, but ultimately owned by that senior team. They need to be credible. They need to be believable. They need to be honest. And you’ll only get one shot at it. Try and repeat the exercise because it went wrong the first time will mean it is received with cynicism and lack of trust. It’s very hard to regain that trust and credibility once it’s lost.

4. A strategic narrative is not about artful wordsmithing. In order to be authentic, it has to be the output of a dynamic, personal and intensely honest conversation between interviewer and interviewee. I have seen so many Communications Heads take pen to paper when the first draft is less than acceptable, only to impose their own viewpoint on the Story. If this happens the authenticity as a truly collective perspective is immediately lost. Nor should a truly effective strategic narrative be judged by its polished words and sanitised view of the world. It’s about tone, language, honesty and emotional punch. If you want to convert your cynics, it’s got to be credible – warts and all. This is something that is often extremely difficult to achieve for an ‘insider.’

5. The benefit of a good strategic narrative is that in almost all cases these days it forms part of a wider change agenda, acting as a catalyst for change. This means that its principal stakeholders should be from all over the business: those concerned with leadership development, culture, talent management, IT, process and system engineering (which may well be affected by the content), Executive coaching and facilitation, brand, sales, marketing, communications capability-building and ongoing strategic development. I repeat, a strategic narrative is never just a ‘communications’ exercise.

6.  A strategic narrative should be crafted within a proper narrative structure – a rational and emotional flow, with a beginning, middle and end. It should be written in down-to-earth language, almost as a conversation, built on a deeply personal collective perspective. What it isn’t is a series of facts about your strategy, vision, goals, objectives, purpose, mission and values. The writer needs to truly understand the power of a proper story structure, and bring meaning to its component parts in an emotionally compelling way. This is quite a specialist skill, not owned nor fully understood by a great number of Communications Departments (quite understandably).

7.  Lastly, for a strategic narrative to be truly effective, it needs to manifest itself in more than just words. It needs to be embellished and brought to life by a powerful creative identity that will enable a Communications team to link future messaging back to the narrative. This creative identity is not just about illustration or applied branding. The narrative will have at its heart a core message or big idea which will form the basis for a sustainable and exciting campaign, and the Story – or big idea within the Story – needs to be told in pictures as well as words. A successful visual identity will heighten the emotional connection and breathe life and soul into it. The team behind the big idea is a creative team, which needs to work hand in hand with the writer as he/she is starting to develop the narrative. One cannot work without the other. It’s not impossible, but it’s rare for an in-house Communications team to have this unusual blend of skills.

This is not an arrogant viewpoint designed to put Communications teams down in any way whatsoever. We work with some of the biggest companies in the world, all of whom have some of the most talented Communications teams you could wish to have and many have been instrumental in helping deliver successful corporate narratives. They are essential facilitators of the process and vital stakeholders. Quite honestly we can’t do without their buy-in and help to build momentum behind the narrative and embed it into the organisation.

But the crafting of the narrative and ensuing alignment process is a delicate, political and potentially risky process. It can be cathartic, energising and the source of great clarity, understanding and commitment. It some cases, however, the process can be disruptive – particularly when there is a political agenda at play, or lack of consensus around the strategy, leading to certain leaders realise that they cannot align behind the strategy and therefore should think about their future with the business. The last thing you’d want is for the Communications team to be the political fall guys.

Think carefully about who you choose to implement the narrative-building process. Go to the professionals; these are often external (objective) consultants who have a great track record, understand what an effective Story structure involves, have credibility in storytelling and who can build trust quickly at the most senior level. Of course involve your Communications Department – they are vital players in the process, but tread very carefully. You may only get one chance.

“It has changed the way I think”

Posted on by Nailia Tasseel

“Sometimes when a blind man is walking around, there is a hole in front of him. It takes a person with eyesight to stop him from falling in that hole.”

Those are the words of a Nigerian former miller, former religious radical, describing the deradicalisation programme he is participating in in jail. He gets training, education and religious counselling.

The gist of the story, reported today in the FT, is that leaders of radical religious groups attract a following of lonely, frustrated people, desperate to escape the monotony of their lives, by offering them a sense of purpose. The narrative empowers them, is intoxicating, and leads them to do appalling things with utter conviction.

The counselling programme is attractive because it recognises the existence, and power, of the inner narrative. And it realises that to shift behaviour, counsellors need to shift their subject’s inner narrative – to change the way they think and perceive the world around them. Even members of Boko Haram see that one way to bring the organisation down is for members to “sabotage it from the inside”.

Turning to the more pleasant climes of leadership in the workplace, you increasingly see this approach in action. Dr Steve Peters helps us to manage our inner chimp; good managers seek to coach their people, rather than direct them; and the current generation of visionary leaders are replacing autocracy with an approach based on inspiration and context.

Better environment, better outcomes, more human.

Enjoy your weekend.

A C-suite narrative: context and influence

Posted on by Nailia Tasseel

A piece of research by McKinsey* suggests that nearly half of top executives say they struggled to earn support for their ideas when they transitioned to a C-suite role.

They reflected that they weren’t successful at aligning others around their early objectives. In an environment where early decisions can define the success of an executives tenure and ideas are vying for priority, context is vital to build support. A strategic narrative provides a unique type of context. It provides reassurance, it reaffirms value and rigorously sense-checks new suggestions against carefully selected criteria. Consequently, ideas that tackle the big challenges the narrative identifies, pursue a defined strategy and support desired behaviours and values are now prioritised and fully supported. They have context – they are in service of a vision of a better future that every member of that senior team has committed to realising.

One of the foundations of our programme is aligning Boards around their business journey. This is often one of the most powerful sessions in a typical programme – uncovering issues that are preventing progress, establishing priorities, building conviction and uniting a senior leadership team. Every decision made around the Board table now reinforces a powerful vision and ideas are contributing to a defined business journey.

The study highlights the importance of creating a shared vision and underlines the dangers of an misaligned executive. Those who responded cited this as the most important transition activity. Naturally such a powerful and influential tool isn’t easy to create – only thirty percent thought creating a shared vision was easy in their new role.

* “Ascending to the C-suite”, McKinsey & Company, 2015

Visualising success

Posted on by Nailia Tasseel

Major James Nesmeth had a dream of improving his golf game—and he developed a unique method of achieving his goal.

Until he devised this method, he was just your average weekend golfer, shooting in mid to low nineties. Then, for seven years, he completely quit the game. Never touched a club or set foot on a fairway.

But it was during this seven-year break from the game that Major Nesmeth came up with his amazingly effective technique for improving his game.

The first time he set foot on a golf course after his hiatus, he shot an astonishing 74. He had cut 20 strokes off his average without having swung a golf club in ten years! Not only that, his physical condition had actually deteriorated during those seven years.

What was Major Nesmeth’s secret? Visualisation.

Major Nesmeth had spent those seven years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. During those seven years, he was imprisoned in a cage that was approximately four and one-half feet high and five feet long. During almost the entire time he was imprisoned, he saw no one, talked to no one and had no physical activity. During the first few months he did virtually nothing but hope and pray for his release. Then he realised he had to find some way to occupy his mind or he would lose his sanity and probably his life. That’s when he learned to visualise.

In his mind, he selected his favorite golf course and started playing golf. Every day, he played a full 18 holes at the imaginary country club. He experienced everything to the last detail. He saw himself dressed in his golfing clothes. He smelled the fragrance of the trees and the freshly trimmed grass. He experienced different weather conditions—windy spring days, overcast winter days, and sunny summer mornings.

In his imagination, every detail of the tee, the individual blades of grass, the trees, the singing birds, the scampering squirrels and the lay of the course became totally real. He felt the grip of the club in his hands. He instructed himself as he practiced smoothing out his downswing and the followthrough on his shot. Then he watched the ball arc down the exact center of the fairway, bounce a couple of times and
roll to the exact spot he had selected, all in his mind.

He was in no hurry. He had no place to go. So in his mind he took every step on his way to the ball, just as if he were physically on the course. It took him just as long in imaginary time to play 18 holes as it would have taken in reality. Not a detail was omitted. Not once did he ever miss a shot, never a hook or a slice, never a missed putt.

Seven days a week. Four hours a day. Eighteen holes. Seven years. Twenty strokes off. Shot a 74.